Plywood is made of multiple laminated sheets of veneer which is a thin layer of wood peeled from a log. The process of producing veneer involves mounting an 8' long log that is substantially cylindrical into a veneer lathe. The log is clamped at its ends and rotated against an 8' long veneer knife. The knife is controllably moved against the log, first peeling off surface portions to round up the log and make it truly cylindrical with the cylindrical axis coinciding with the axis of rotation. Thereafter the knife produces a continuous sheet, e.g., 8' wide and 1/8" thick of the veneer which is conveyed through a cut off knife, cutting the sheet into 4' lengths. After drying, the sheets are stacked, e.g., with three or five sheets to a stack, and glued together to produce the plywood (3 ply, 5 ply, etc.).
The quality of the plywood sheets is dependent on the production of the consistent thickness of the veneer sheets. The consistent thickness of the veneer sheets is largely dependent on the controlled cutting of the log and this requires a veneer knife having a straight, consistently sharpened cutting edge.
Whereas such cutting edges have heretofore been sharpened by hand requiring substantial man hours and significant cost, an objective of the present invention is to automate or partially automate the sharpening process.